Although I visited Guatemala and Honduras multiple times as a child I have never had the privilege of seeing firsthand the incredible dyed sawdust carpets of Semana Santa, holy week. These are temporary works of art, forming a carpet for the parades and processionals that take place throughout the week leading up to Easter. The first photo is from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the rest are from Guatemala. Aren’t they magnificent?

Welcome to new readers! I’m so glad you found my website and The Purple Elephant book! I write books for kids from kindergarten through middle school and my books are filled with humor, usually in the form of animals doing things animals don’t usually do! Like Duck, who owns a farm, and the purple elephant who… well, I don’t want to spoil any surprises.

I came across this picture the other day and it is purportedly not photoshopped. There is a famer in Scotland who dyes his sheep for the amusement of tourists. I thought something like this would be perfect for a Duck and Friends story.

Hi Duck fans! I wanted to let you know that the e-version of my early reader Duck and Friends: The Dinosaur Bones will be on sale at Amazon from 2/10-2/15. Sale price $.99, regularly $2.99. Tell your friends and let’s make a splash in the rankings! Great for ages 4-8.

Hey, thanks for everyone who visited and those who played Pick Your Favorite Dragon in my Appreciate a Dragon Day contest & giveaway! Diana was the obvious favorite, although the Medieval Mars dragon got a vote and my son wanted to vote for Duck’s friend Dragon if I had let him enter the drawing, which I didn’t. He has all of my books already. 🙂 Anyway, I used a Random Number Generator from Google and it chose the number 2, which means that the second commenter (Lori) is the winner! Congratulations and thanks again everyone who played!

January 16 is “Appreciate a Dragon Day!” I didn’t realize until today, but I included dragon characters in every series of my children’s books. How could I not have known that? Dragons, I’m sorry! I really appreciate you! In appreciation of my dragons, I am holding a contest to determine the favorite. Vote for your favorite dragon in the comments below and your name will be entered in a drawing to receive a free book of your choice from my Duck and Friends series, Purple Elephant series or Sam and the Dragon. You don’t have to vote for the dragon in the book you’d like to win. So… drumroll, please… the contestants are… .

Medieval Mars Dragon (the newest addition — welcome to the family!)

.

.

Which one is your favorite? You have until 5pm PST Sunday 1/18 to vote. Winners will be announced Sunday night.

.

Appreciate a Dragon Day was established in 2004 by author Donita K. Paul to celebrate the release of DragonSpell. On her blog, Ms. Paul lists lots more wonderful ideas on ways to celebrate her holiday.

This morning I read a true story of animals antics that is worthy of any of my Duck and Friends books. It was about Geronimo, the parachuting beaver. No joke. In 1948, Idaho’s Department of Fish and Game moved some beavers into the backcountry by dropping them out of planes with parachutes, and a beaver named Geronimo was their test pilot… er… rodent. A story this silly deserves a silly retelling and Rob Thornberry of the Idaho Falls Post Register really does the story justice. You can link to the story here.

We visited two church parking lots last night to see their nativity scenes. The first was very humble, with a makeshift stable, kids in costume and two sheep baaing so loud they occasionally drowned out the narrator. They did a 5-10 minute pageant, which they repeated every 15 minutes or so. There was hot cocoa and cookies and several church members practically begged us to walk into the sanctuary because they had it decorated so pretty. We did, and it was beautiful. Besides the church members, there were a small handful of guests like us enjoying the event. Andrew spent his time with the sheep and three chickens.

The second nativity was a drive-through complete with search light and multiple attendants to direct traffic. As we passed through the snack bar, church members came up to our window and offered us cocoa and popcorn. I overheard one server tell another that they had 900 people so far. Then we drove into a line-up that reminded me of the car stack lanes for a ferry. When it was our turn to move into position, we tuned our radio to hear the show and watched a nativity light show worthy of that Christmas light fight show on TV (I think — I’ve never actually watched it). It was about 10 minutes long and flawless — which was nice since it took us probably 45 minutes to get through the line to see it.

Two nativity scenes telling the same story, but polar opposite in style. The light show was incredible, but if I had to pick just one, I’d visit the little stable with the noisy sheep.

I’ll be signing copies of Sam and the Dragon: A Medieval Mars Story and other books next Saturday at the 15th Annual Authors & Artists Fair! Drop by the Lane County Fairgrounds Atrium Saturday, Dec. 6 anytime from 10-6. It’s a great place to do some Christmas shopping and meet your favorite authors like Jan Eliot, Bill Sullivan, Bob Welch, Dorcas Smucker and me!

There were four entries to the drawing, so I had an online Random Number Generator pick a number between 1 and 4 and it picked… 1! Tabitha was the first to comment so she wins the drawing! Thank you, friends and readers, for playing. If you want to pick up a copy and you didn’t win, everything is now live on Amazon in paperback and kindle versions. Click here to order the book.